Website Design for Musicians and Bands

If you are a band or musician designing a website, you must first decide what the objective of the website is. There’s no sense making a content driven website portal with a thousand links if you are just trying to present yourself and your music. Should you have a forum for your fans? Should you have an email list? Should you have a photo album? A resume?

It all depends on what your main source of income is as a musician. If you’re not sure, go back and read a previous post, Average Income of a Musician, to get a better idea of what your career goals are.

Bands and Singer/Songwriters

If you are an original band, or a singer/songwriter – the choice is obvious. Rock stars need a pamphlet website that can act as a promo packet over the internet.

Make sure the vibe of the site suits you and your music. Scour the internet for band sites – look through as many as you can and pick out the things you like about their design. Pick out your own colors. Make your own graphics if you can, or have a graphic designer you trust do it.

I think a big mistake that new (broke) bands make is they let a friend or fan make the site for free. It sounds like a good offer, right? But then you see it and it’s lime green and pink and your logo is a purple toad. And what do you say then? You don’t want to lose a friend or a fan, right?

I get it, you can’t afford a graphic designer when you’re making $30 a night singing in the local coffee shop. My advice would be to find a graphic design student who needs the experience and the cash, but will give you a good deal. But be sure to check their portfolio first to see if you like their work.

If you don’t have many fans yet, make it a very simple site. Don’t include a forum until there is demand for it. Don’t include a guestbook, and if you have a blog, don’t include comments. You want to make sure you don’t give the impression that no one ever comes to your website and no one likes you. An empty forum and 2 comments from 2003 will make it look like that.

You should definitely include a calendar of events if you are primarily a live performer, but if you do include a calendar, make sure that you commit to updating it. Just like an empty forum, there is nothing more pathetic than seeing that someone’s upcoming events are from 9 months ago. With all promotional material you are trying to project an image of success and popularity. Don’t ruin that with a calendar that has zero events on it.

Definitely include a sign-up for an email list. This is probably your best, cheapest promotional tool as an independent artist.

There are literally thousands and thousands of website templates for original music performers, and you shouldn’t have trouble getting a website up and running if that’s what you need.

Freelance Musicians

If, on the other hand, you are a freelance gigging musician and not a current or future rock star, what kind of site should you have? This includes many different kinds of musicians – wedding musicians, accompanists, cover bands, theatre musicians – and many more.

As a musician-for-hire, as opposed to a rock star, you are providing a service. In many ways, your business is more like a law firm than a tour bus. You are highly trained and educated and able to provide skills and knowledge that is valuable to those people that do not have the skills themselves (your clients). Sounds like a lawyer to me.

Accordingly, your promo material, including your website, should reflect this service-oriented product. Freelance musicians-for-hire should have menu websites that present their services and what they charge. Like every music site, your website should have music samples, but you should also list the services that you often provide – i.e. wedding ceremonies, wedding receptions, cocktail music, accompanying, transcription services, music notation, arranging, composition, studio recording, etc. Much like a restaurant menu, people will be more comfortable ordering services from you when they know what is available and how much it costs.

Set standard rates for your services – but don’t set them too low! You can always negotiate them down later and give people the impression that you are adding value to your services by giving them a deal. Everybody loves a deal. Set your prices 10-20% above what you expect to get. Don’t be scared that this will drive off potential customers. When it comes to skill-dependent services, people don’t always want to go with the cheap guy. If you had a very important case – would you want to go to the discount lawyer that charges $25/hr, or the guy that charges $100/hr? If you really want it to go well, you’d probably go with the $100/hr guy. How good can the other guy be if he’s only charging $25?

Like many websites that front business that provide tangible – not digital – services (landscapers, athletic clubs, plumbers, etc.), the hard part is sealing the deal with the people that come to your website. Most musician’s gigs come from word of mouth, so it can be especially difficult to land a gig with a stranger through the internet.

The best thing you can do is to be honest and provide valuable information to your visitors. Include a promotional picture of yourself, sample recordings, your list of services and prices, a short bio including details of your training and education, testimonials from previous clients, reviews from local critics in applicable. Then, in an obvious spot, loud and clear, put your phone number and email and encourage them to contact you with questions and for booking.

To to other non-musician sites that provide services and see how they sell themselves. As a freelance musician, you are a small business just like them, and there is lots of room for you to utilize the small business practices that you see on those websites.

Contract-Based Musicians

If you are a musician that is primarily hired by contractors, you need a different website still. In the past few years, I’ve been that kind of musician. I don’t freelance much anymore, I’m mostly hired by theatre companies and contractors for extended contracts (3-9 months at a time). Contract-based musicians need an informational website. People will come to your website as part of the applicant screening process.

If this is you, you probably shouldn’t provide a list of services, a calendar of events – anything like that. You don’t want to give contractors the idea that you are freelancing or booked because they prefer to hire people who’s schedule is open and will be available for whatever gig they are doing.

Include a bio and a resume. My resume is the most downloaded file from my website. The second most viewed/downloaded files are my music files on the front page. Contractors and theatre owners want to know who you are, what you look like, what you’ve done before, and how you can play. Provide that to them entirely from the front page.

For longer contracts, those people that hire you might also be interested in your personality and how they think you might get along with the other people on the gig. You should think about providing a blog, or somehow tastefully including some personal information like hobbies or interests. Its best to make yourself look like a human. But, of course, don’t go too far. The people hiring you don’t want to know your flaws. Always assume that whatever you put on your website will be read by potential employers. For that reason, don’t include a guestbook or a forum on a site like this – you never know what people will write.

Keep these design recommendations in mind when you create your website. If you’re making a dynamic website with ASP or PHP – be sure to update it regularly! Look at the web-hosting services provided for musicians by HostBaby.com, they are a little more expensive but great for musicians that need a little help designing it themselves.